The best walks and hikes around Hiers-Brouage

fortified village, former port of departure for the Americas, today it is located approximately 1.5km from the shore...

The city gate facing north or Rochfort. Here, for example, the climb up to the city wall.

Right in the middle of the Poitou-Charente marshes, the pretty village of Brouage enhances the landscape with its 16th century fortifications.

More information can be found here: https://meinfrance.com/brouage-schoenste-doerfer-zitadelle/

The stronghold of Brouage is a former salt trading port named Jacopolis-sur-Brouage, which became a Catholic war port wanted by Cardinal Richelieu who named it Brouage in 1627 to compete with the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle. Brouage is also considered to be perhaps the birthplace of the geographer Samuel de Champlain who participated in the founding and colonization of New France, and who is the founder of the city of Quebec in Canada. A military port on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean until the beginning of the 18th century, the town is today inland and surrounded by marshes. Attention: inside the citadel the streets are almost exclusively paved.

One could also leave the city by other passages: two posterns, the curtain of the sea, two underground ports in the sides of the bastions of La Brèche and Hiers for navigation by boat in the ditches. There are two powder magazines, that of François d'Espinay de Saint-Luc with four flying buttresses contained 30 tons of powder, that of La Brèche, built by Vauban in 1692, contained 20 tons.

The walled city's busiest gate connects to the civilian city through which it was originally founded. The Hiers gate was almost completely demolished and was protected by advanced works.

The Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul church was opened for worship in 1608, the year of the founding of Quebec. From an architectural point of view, it is a transitional building between the Gothic style and the Renaissance style. The bell tower and part of the facade were rebuilt at the end of the 18th century after a storm caused damage to this part of the building in 1731. Thus, the portal is tinged with classical influences, which are expressed by the presence of pilasters and a triangular pediment. Inside, stained glass windows depict episodes from the founding of New France. One of them depicts the founding of the city of Quebec, while another, offered by New Brunswick, represents the post of Sainte-Croix Island, founded in 1604 by Pierre Dugua de Mons. Finally, another glass roof evokes the founding of Jacopolis on Brouage in 1555. The Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Vincent church is decorated with stained glass windows testifying to the ties of friendship that unite France and Quebec. Six of the nine stained glass windows are the work of the artist Nicolas Sollogoub. The church also houses an 18th century Virgin, an ex-voto representing a ship from the early 20th century, as well as the tomb of the former governor of Place de Brouage, Claude d'Assigné, Marquis de Carnavalet, who died on September 10, 1685. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiers-Brouage#Patrimoine_architectural